


Mourning After

by Stark



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Experimental Style, M/M, Missing Scene, One Shot, Unrequited Love, Year That Never Was
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-09
Updated: 2014-05-09
Packaged: 2018-01-24 03:38:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1590308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stark/pseuds/Stark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The morning after the night after the year that never was.<br/>Missing scene for <i>Last of the Time Lords</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mourning After

**Jack lies restlessly between freshly laundered sheets** (every few hours he catches a whiff of the sickening odour of mixed sweat and grime, and blood, and he jumps up, but then recalls that yes, he has already washed himself; he runs his hand over clean, smooth skin with some surprise) **and although he does not dream** (sleep is still vaguely associated with a sudden, sharp pain in his arms; he cannot remember why) **,** **he imagines** (or maybe recalls, he tries desperately to register every second in his memory) **the Doctor’s hand in his hair** (long, cool fingers on the nape of his neck, steady, firm touch, and all of a sudden Jack’s breath catches) **when he kneels in front of him** (the cold TARDIS floor somehow makes him feel at home again) **,** **doing what he can do best** (better than fighting aliens, better than keeping his promises to himself – never again will he fall in love, not for real – better than dying), **what he thinks would help best** (the fact that the Doctor says yes almost catches him off guard; he’s never thought despair was all it would take) **,** **and waiting** (over and over again) **for the Doctor’s words** (he had plenty of time to rehearse hearing them: _oh, Jack_ , and a shiver running down right to his loins, _you are not wrong_ and this time his heart would come back to life, too) **until the moment** (Jack does not want to remember anymore, but he has to; after two years of his life were stolen, he simply couldn’t afford to lose more memories) **he realises whose** (the frightening pain, a knife in his heart when he comes back to life, darkness under his eyelids, over his eyelids, everywhere, but he does not deny the Doctor even one time) **name the last** **Time Lord’s** (Jack will never forgive him forgiving _him_ ; when the Doctor cries, he tears his eyes away from the Master’s corpse, looks at the ceiling and wants this ridiculous scene to be over already) **lips form voicelessly** (it is not really kindness, it is cowardice, that _I’m sorry, I’m so sorry_ ) **and** (now he can remember everything) **he hates himself** (himself, him, them) **for not standing up** (Jack looks entreatingly into his eyes, dilated pupils and too long eyelashes, _don’t leave me again, not now_ , but he cannot see the answer, he cannot see anything, and he thinks that looking into the Time itself must feel like this, cold and lonely) **and not leaving him** (for Satellite 5, for one and a half century in Cardiff, for the Valiant) **alone** (for once ultimately, definitely, forever) **– and then he suddenly feels a hand** (soft, tender, compassionate, understanding, _human_ ; Jack opens his eyes) **on his forehead because Martha is worried about his high temperature, and when she asks if he has problems sleeping, there’s more than a doctor’s** ( _the_ Doctor’s) **professional concern in her voice, so Jack** (forgets everything) **sits up, smiles at her and he is himself again.**

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2008.


End file.
